Out of Eric Ambler’s thriller, “Journey Into Fear,” Orson Welles and his perennial Mercury Company have made an uneven but generally imaginative and exciting tale of terror. Less ambitious than any of the company’s previous productions, the new film at the Palace is nevertheless many notches above the garden variety regularly sent to Broadway.

“Journey Into Fear” opened April 14, 1943, at the Hawaii Theater, 5939 Hollywood Blvd., on a bill with “Laugh Your Blues Away” with Jinx Falkenburg and Bert Gordon, and a Pete Smith short.

Los Angeles Times movie critic Edwin Schallert said:

“In the Welles production, there are ample richness of atmosphere, casual effects in dialogue, an intriguing central idea. This is rather vaguely expressed on the screen — a fault which was noticeable in “The Magnificent Ambersons” and here results in actual lameness in the unfolding of the plot.

Immediately recognized because it is from a Welles RKO project. The film is ‘Journey Into Fear’, and the ‘actor’ is Jack Moss, who actually was an accountant at RKO. HIs discovery is similar to another unlikely film accountant turned actor, Edward (Ditto) Brophy.

Must be an Orson Welles production, with Joseph Cotton, Ruth Warrick, and the wonderful character actor sitting between them who was in Welles’ stable of actors (I would have to cheat to look up his name), and of course the great man himself in heavy make-up in the last pic.